A Love that Lasts Forever
by Rhianwen
Summary: In which Sephiroth pursues his one true love. A look into that same silver-haired ultimate evil’s mind...after he has severely damaged it by walking into a wall. Dedicated to my dear Bezo the Blue Priest. Utter silliness. You have been warned. :o)


A Love that Lasts Forever  
  
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Summary: In which Sephiroth pursues his one true love. A look into that same silver-haired ultimate evil's mind...after he has severely damaged it by walking into a wall.  
  
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Notes: Pairing preferences are Tifa/Cloud (I'm sorry, Aeris/Cloud people! I love Aeris, but I'm SUCH a sucker for the 'girl next door' romance!), Vincent/Yuffie (I've really gotta get around to writing a real story about these two - after I've played the game all the way through, that is), and Sephiroth/Masamune (please don't run away! Remember, it's only a PG rating!). Oh, yes; and I am quite substantially anti-Aeris/Sephiroth, as my story shall reflect as I take every opportunity to poke fun at this pairing. If you are a fan of that, this is not meant in any way to make you angry, and I hope it hasn't. I do love the characters of both Aeris and Sephiroth, but the fact that he killed her kind of ruined what Aeris/Sephiroth tendencies I might have otherwise had. [Sigh] Why did they have to make her die? But I digress. Yup. This is me digressing.  
  
Oh, and one more thing: I am quite aware that I have put some Very Strange Things in capitals. I did that for an effect of some sort. What that effect is currently escapes me...  
  
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Disclaimer: I don't own 'em. Squaresoft does. If you want to sue me, O Mighty Square of Everlasting Softness, you shall find, sadly, that you gain very little; only a half-full bag of peanut butter M&M's and the weirdest CD collection in existence.  
  
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And now, ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon with the shoooooooooooooow!!!!  
  
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One day, in between his battles with Cloud and Cloud's party, battles that are ever so numerous within the ridiculously challenging Disc Three - all the more, perhaps, for fan-girls everywhere who may find themselves longing to do things to the man that are quite different from killing him - Mighty Sephiroth, as he is never called, aside from within the mind of a distinctly Blue Priest named Bezo, and, by association, his Yellow Priestess, Yezo, all of which is beside the point...a point which, sadly, I have forgotten. Let us try again.  
  
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One day, Mighty Sephiroth awoke in the Mighty Bed within the Mighty Room of the Mighty Inn of which he was a Mighty Patron, with a decidedly Unfamiliar Sensation tugging at his Mighty Inner Workings. Noting this, and being a sensible lad about such things, Sephiroth set about trying to discover the cause.  
  
Had it been something that he had eaten, reacting badly with his delicate digestive system?  
  
No, Sephiroth was fairly certain that Digestive Problems had nothing to do with it.  
  
A heart attack, perhaps? After all, hadn't his doctor told him that such a thing was inevitable if he didn't reduce the stress in his life? Certainly, battling against a young, spiky haired man and seven of his friends for an entire Disc was not the best way to go about this.  
  
Nevertheless, Sephiroth was also more or less sure that a Heart Attack was no more his problem than Digestive Problems had been.  
  
Could it be guilt, combined with a strange, unaccountable feeling of loss at the thought of the lovely young Ancient girl Aeris, whose mortal coil he had effectively shuffled off with the aid of his trusty companion, Masamune?  
  
This possibility gave Sephiroth a moment of pause, and Aeris/Sephiroth 'shippers the Internet over caught their breath in anticipation.  
  
No, Sephiroth decided, it wasn't the realization of his love for the now dead Ancient that was giving him this strange sensation that continued to tug merrily at his Inner Workings.  
  
   "BOO!!!" shouted all of the Aeris/Sephiroth 'shippers the Internet over.  
  
Sephiroth paid these 'shippers little mind, as for the life of him, he could not understand HOW his impaling the lovely young woman with his Faithful Companion, Masamune, could be construed as Misguided Affection. Certainly, when a man has an Affection for a woman, he has the urge to do things to her involving objects that, albeit much shorter (which he will likely deny), maintain the same phallic shape as a sword. But these things rarely involve the death of the woman, unless the man is going about them entirely the wrong way.  
  
Ah! But what was this? The instant all this had passed through his mind, the Strange Feeling had grown stronger, giving his Inner Workings a stronger tug. Perhaps the name of Aeris had done it, thus proving the 'shippers right?  
  
Aeris, Aeris, Aeris.  
  
No, that wasn't it.  
  
Impaled. Impaled, impaled, impaled, impaled.  
  
No, it also wasn't the unexplained urge to impale things.  
  
Masamune?  
  
Sephiroth drew in a sharp breath as the Strange Feeling gave an almost violent tug at his Inner Workings. Masamune! That was it! A bird burst into song in a tree just outside his window.  
  
   "Shut up!" he bellowed, hurling a heavy book across the room and through the window. A second later, a pained and frightened squawk drifted into the room. Sephiroth nodded in satisfaction. Damn birds. How dare they sing and distract him while he was trying to figure something out?  
  
Putting his bitterness toward birds in general firmly aside, Sephiroth rolled out of bed and dressed for the day, reveling as he did in the knowledge that he was in love.  
  
Masamune...the name was like music.  
  
He sighed happily, hands clasped before him, blushing prettily like a schoolgirl, before turning and skipping about the room, singing little made- up songs for the newly revealed love of his life. Then, coming to a stop, he reflected with a pout that Masamune was a very difficult name to rhyme. Ah, well...no one had ever said that love was easy.  
  
At that point, he straightened up, brushed the dust off of his Immensely Cool Long Black Coat and briskly set about his plan of action. Now that he had realized his long-buried affections, he would woo.  
  
But how?  
  
He put a hand to his chin thoughtfully, then turned and felt his heart set a-flutter at the sight of a familiar twelve-foot shape propped up against the wall next to his bed...such as it could be. Perhaps wedged between the floor and the ceiling is a better description.  
  
At any rate, he knew that he must act, or risk losing his love forever.  
  
And act he did.  
  
Dropping to one knee before the tall slim shape, as gallant as ever had been fairy-tale knight, he held one hand out in front of him, pressed the other to his heart, and gave voice to the question burning through his very soul.  
  
   "My darling, might I have the pleasure of your company today?"  
  
Masamune did not reply yes in words, but that expression was unmistakable, and Sephiroth leapt up from the floor and wrapped the massive sword in an affectionate and ecstatic hug.  
  
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The day was one that he would remember and treasure always - or, at least, until Disc Three ended and he ended along with it.  
  
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Sephiroth and Masamune started their magical day together by shaking a picnic breakfast on the front lawn of the inn. The young man ate Eggs Benedict and chilled melon balls and drank orange juice. Masamune ate nothing, seeming, indeed, to have no appetite.  
  
After breakfast, they spent a most charming forenoon frolicking arm-in-arm (such as they could) through a field of wildflowers, whirling about and laughing like children. Sephiroth made a wreath of flowers for Masamune. Masamune seemed to be experiencing difficulties in the crafting of a wreath of flowers for Sephiroth, so Sephiroth finished it and wore it proudly.  
  
Both decked out fetchingly in colorful crowns of wildflowers, Sephiroth and Masamune fell back and lay in the soft, fragrant grasses of the field, gazing up at the sky, watching the clouds (not the one that would later kill him) drifting peacefully by, and the young man felt as though his heart would burst with his happiness.  
  
He rolled over on his side and stroked the cool black metal of Masamune's scabbard, a dreamy smile playing about his lips, when, out of nowhere (or rather, out of Mighty Sephiroth's Mighty Belly of Steel) drifted a series of gurgles and growls.  
  
   "Oh! I apologize, my love. I suppose I must be hungry again. Masamune, would you do me the honor of accompanying me to lunch at the Soda Shop (tm)?"  
  
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Later on...  
  
   "Oh, Gods, it's Sephiroth!" Cloud hissed frantically, feeling the familiar rage bubble up within him, but helpless to do anything about it. To fight here would endanger the lives of all of the Soda Shop (tm)'s customers. Thus, instead he came to a dead stop at the entrance, barring Tifa's progress forward with a protective arm.  
  
   "Well, geez, Cloud, we've spent this whole Disc fighting him; it really shouldn't surprise you anymore," Yuffie reminded him, eyeing an elderly gentleman customer's immensely chocolatey dessert covetously. It was easily within her reach...  
  
   "Oh, fine, I'll order my own," she huffed as Vincent, with a hand firmly on her shoulder, shook his head warningly.  
  
   "No, you won't!" Cloud exclaimed. "We've gotta get out of here!"  
  
   "Cloud," Tifa began, rubbing her eyes wearily, "two things. First of all, we've already fought him several times - all of Disc Three - and we've always come through safely. Secondly, take a look at the man. He's on a date! His mind is elsewhere."  
  
   "Hey, yeah!" Cloud agreed, peering more closely at the man and his very tall, very thin companion. "Who's that with him?"  
  
   "My money's on Elena," Cait Sith, who, being one of the few stuffed cats that suffers frequent chocolate cravings, had accompanied them, announced from outside the diner.  
  
   "Elena?!" Barret repeated incredulously from inside the diner. "No @##$*&%$#@$!&%in' way! It's a @##$*&%$#@$!&%in' fan-girl!"  
  
   "I...didn't think this authoress wrote those," Tifa announced thoughtfully. Thank-you, Tifa, for being the first to defend Rhianwen against these claims that she is, indeed, this sad! You have thus saved yourself from the same level of complete idiocy that the rest of the cast will doubtlessly suffer before the blessed end of this damned 'fic!  
  
   "Yeah, she doesn't. And if she did, she'd be here with Barret instead," Yuffie added, thus giving away one of Rhianwen's more embarrassing deep, dark secrets, and insuring that she would, indeed, be made to do something decidedly silly and embarrassing before the conclusion of this mad little adventure. "By the way, Barret, how do you spell @##$*&%$#@$!&%?"  
  
   "@-#-#-$-*-&-%-$-#-@-$-!-&-%," Barret replied calmly.  
  
   "Guys, take a closer look," Cloud murmured, torn between the desire to laugh and the desire to smash the man's head in.  
  
Hesitantly, the rest of the group, minus Cid, who had bowed out of the little excursion to the Soda Shop (tm), opting instead to stay home and get some work done (on a side note, the rest of the group had their doubts about this 'work' - indeed, both he and Shera had seemed to be in uncommonly cheerful moods lately. Suspicious? Certainly), crept forward...and nearly exploded into giggles, minus Vincent, who was not given to doing such things, and Barret, who considered giggling to be to @##$*&%$#@$!&%in' girly, at the sight of Sephiroth seated comfortably on the red plastic cushion of the booth, elbows propped on the table, chin propped in his hands, sipping at a chocolate milkshake (Tifa, Yuffie, and Cait Sith wiped away simultaneous trails of drool at this - the milkshake, that is, not at the sight of Sephiroth sipping it) through an intricately coiled twisty-straw, and gazing lovingly at none other than the 12-foot Masamune propped up against the seat opposite him.  
  
Being that the diner's ceilings were not built to accommodate customers such as a 12-foot sword, it appeared as though Sephiroth had made some...impromptu renovations. As such, Masamune extended up through a gaping hole in the ceiling that they were fairly certain had not been there before.  
  
   "Masamune," he began reproachfully, gazing at his date with visible hurt in his eyes, "why aren't you drinking any? Don't you like chocolate? Would you have preferred strawberry?"  
  
At this point, the camera decided to return to our group of heroes, who had ceased watching in astonishment and had begun laughing hysterically, barring only Vincent, who continued to cast nervous glances at Sephiroth and Masamune, in fear that the silver-haired ultimate evil might hear them and destroy the entire diner, and then, as something bumped against his leg, stooped to pick up Yuffie, who had, for some reason felt it necessary to roll on the floor in order to properly laugh insanely. Once she was safely dusted off (the process of which both enjoyed immensely), and set upright, she went right back to laughing insanely, and he crossed his arms, waiting patiently for sanity to return to his friends.  
  
And waited.  
  
And waited.  
  
When, after five minutes, there was still no sign of an end to the storm of giggles, he glanced down at an impatiently tapping foot, which seemed to be attached to his leg. Resisting with great difficulty the urge to roll his eyes, he opted instead for a more in-character impatient sigh.  
  
   "Is it really that funny, guys?"  
  
   "Maybe you're right, Vincent," Tifa admitted, wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes. "And after all, it IS rather sweet, the way they've managed to find happiness together."  
  
   "Sweet?!" Barret echoed loudly. "It's a @##$*&%$#@$!&%in' sword!"  
  
   "Yeah," Cait Sith agreed, munching happily on the immensely chocolatey dessert that Yuffie had earlier refrained from stealing (or rather, which Vincent had earlier restrained her from stealing) from the elderly customer, thus leaving it for him. "Falling in love with an inanimate object? That's gotta be the saddest thing I've ever heard. Ah, chocolate," he continued, gazing lovingly at his dessert, "you are my sun, my moon, my starlit sky. Hmm...I wonder where I've heard that before."  
  
   "Hey, look, guys," Cloud broke in. "I know I promised you all that I'd buy dessert today, but I really think we'd all better just get out of here. I don't know what miracle made him not hear us all laughing hysterically for five minutes, but I don't think we should try our luck any further."  
  
With a collective reluctant murmur of agreement, the group started towards the door. Except for one. Cloud raised an eyebrow.  
  
   "Uh...Vincent? You coming?"  
  
   "In a minute," he replied, turning back to the counter and handing the clerk a sum of money, in turn retrieving a small jar. "Thank-you."  
  
Then, turning from the counter, he quickly and furtively handed the object to Yuffie.  
  
   "Uh...'Chocolate Body Paint?'" she read aloud, more than a little confused.  
  
   "I'll explain later," he assured her.  
  
   "Okay," she agreed with a shrug before following Cloud & Co. from the Soda Shop (tm).  
  
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Sephiroth watched with one eyebrow quirked as the 'gang' left the diner.  
  
   "Chocolate body paint, hmm? What do you think, Masamune? Should we try some of that?" He smiled suggestively. "I could rub it all over you, and then lick it off...and then find a Band-Aid."  
  
Masamune sat there, impassive.  
  
   "Masamune, is something wrong?" Sephiroth asked with a frown. "You seem distant. We just aren't...connecting like we used to."  
  
Masamune said nothing.  
  
   "Masamune! Are you giving me the silent treatment?!"  
  
Apparently, Masamune was.  
  
    "Alright, I can take a hint! That's it! We are THROUGH!"  
  
With that, the young man slid out of the booth and stormed from the diner. Once at the door, he leaned against the doorframe, a flood of memories washing over him.  
  
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Sephiroth and Masamune sharing a picnic breakfast...  
  
Sephiroth and Masamune frolicking arm-in-arm (or trying to) in a field of flowers...  
  
Sephiroth and Masamune paddling about a moonlit lake, Sephiroth serenading Masanune on a guitar...  
  
Sephiroth and Masamune in a Soda Shop (tm), sharing a milkshake through twin twisty straws...  
  
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A single tear rolled down Sephiroth's cheek as the final strains of 'When Somebody Loved Me' faded away. And with that, he knew that he could not do it. Resolutely, he turned and marched back into the diner.  
  
   "My love, I'm sorry I lost my temper. I...do that sometimes. Can you ever forgive me?"  
  
Masamune could.  
  
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The End  
  
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End Notes: Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay, that had NO point whatsoever! But, hey, admit it. You giggled over some of it. Right? [Makes sad-puppy eyes]  
  
Oh, fine. So you didn't laugh at all, and now you're going to flame the living daylights out of me. Well, go ahead! What are ya, chicken!? [Makes various chicken noises]  
  
Of course, if you are one of the rare souls that liked this, please feel free to tell me that, too. [Big smile]  
  
Bye! [Waves cheerily, then bounces away to finish playing the freaking game]


End file.
